Fifteen Years Later…

It is clear that over the past fifteen years, US leadership did not heed any of my recommendations from Philosophy for the Third Millennia. They massively increased the debt, caused an additional mountain of hatred of the US by starting two perpetual wars, and environmental degradation has continued unabated. Would the world be a different place today if my ideas had caught on with a wide audience fifteen years ago? It is hard to speculate on what-ifs, but I believe so. For the difference between how life is now and how it could have been had I remained active and outspoken, I cannot help but think that my inaction is partly to blame. There is plenty of blame to go around though.

I was twenty-two when I wrote Philosophy for the Third Millennia, a long-haired idealistic college student with enough energy and optimism to change the world. I didn’t get everything right, and looking back there are definitely things that I wish I could change about the text, but I do know that most of what I said has held up to be absolutely correct. To not acknowledge and point out my mistakes would be dishonest, so before I go on to explain first I’ll explain the points in which I now know that I erred.

First, I stated that the Republican Party promises to lower taxes were just a big lie. I thought so because to do so would be madness, given our debt situation. I was shocked when they actually did it. I didn’t see at the time, that they already knew that the Big Bust was coming and that they were working to hasten its arrival. They did so by lowering taxes and starting two very expensive wars which has nearly tripled our debt in the last fifteen years from the already ridiculous amount it was then. Today they continue their duplicitous madness by declaring both the necessity to make the Bush tax cuts on the rich permanent while at the same time declaring that we are too far in debt and can’t afford social programs anymore. These are the actions of evil men and women who do not have the best interests of the American people at heart. They do intend to blame the Big Bust on the Democrats, as they’ve been in power for two years, though unable to pass any meaningful legislation with a phalanx of Republican opposition. These people are in fact brilliant, amazingly effective liars, and thoroughly evil to the core.

Another mistake I made in Philosophy for the Third Millennia was when I said that industrial hemp was a completely different species than marijuana. In fact, they are both technically of the same species, cannabis sativa. They are either classified as different varieties or as different sub-species. I was only wrong only in the technical botanical classification of these plants, not that there are major differences between them. I am still of the opinion that a massive move toward the cultivation and harvest of industrial hemp would be a major economic and environmental positive for our country. Unfortunately there are still many who will not acknowledge, or have been sufficiently paid to completely ignore the fact, that significant THC content exists only in the buds from the plants of a completely different sub-species, and the continued ban on industrial hemp is detrimental to our survival as a species.

The thing which I believe I was most wrong about was when I said in regards to Christians’ objections to the practice of abortion that it helps alleviate the problem of overpopulation. I no longer believe overpopulation is a problem. We have the technology to feed and house all of the world’s people many times over. The fact that we don’t isn’t because we can’t. It’s because it doesn’t maximize corporate profits.

Aside from those relatively minor points, my analysis of our situation was amazingly accurate. The hegemony of the United States is certainly in decline, the debt has gotten impossibly high, the trading of derivatives and speculation have brought the financial system to its knees, the environment has become significantly worse, and the corrosive nature of the Christian Church has become clearer than ever. I should also point out that on February 18, 2001 the Puget Sound region did experience a major earthquake (less than five years after I said they would have one within five years.) Clearly my predictions have turned out to be overwhelmingly accurate. Though I could cite hundreds of examples of why I was right about this and that, after much consideration I’ve decided that I’m going to simply leave it at that, and let my words from fifteen years ago stand on their own with no further commentary. I’d really like to focus on today.

We live in a world today where civil liberties have been eroded. Stealing billions from the government no longer lands one in jail, but makes him qualified to become Governor of Florida. The most effective technique used by enemies of truth has become The Big Lie, and their Big Lies are repeated over and over throughout the mainstream media while voices of dissent are marginalized and trivialized. The market has been turned into a casino for billionaires, with no regard for the consequences of their actions. And because their The Big Lie technique is working so well, a large and very well-armed portion of the citizenry has come to believe that secular progressive people such as myself are the enemies of America even more so than the fictional terrorists we’re at war against. I am now convinced that the time to prevent this coming disaster has passed. It is upon us, and the tipping point is near. Nobody can predict the date for certain, and I know that there are some forces trying very hard to delay it. There is a chance that they will be successful in delaying the inevitable for as much as a year or two. I doubt it will be that long until the wheels fall off. Now I am not speaking of the “Great Recession” which I’d date at beginning in August 2007 and has had everyone in America groaning about how bad our economy is since. This downturn in the economy we’ve experienced is merely the trigger for what will soon become unspeakable suffering and complete chaos. The powerful and informed know what is to come, and over the past few years it seems that forces have worked very hard to both delay this inevitable collapse, and make it worse when it happens.

While the collapse of the current system is inevitable, there will be something which replaces it. Whether that ‘something’ is good or evil is going to depend on us, and I for one intend to stand and fight for the armies of good to ensure that what replaces our current system is not evil. Sadly, I expect to be in the minority and massively outnumbered and outgunned. Even more sadly, the bulk of the opponents of good will not necessarily be evil themselves, but rather be those who have soaked up the lies and hate of the evil, they’ll be armed to the teeth, and though thinking themselves to be in fact good and righteous, will defend the cause of evil to their deaths.

Lies have become the most effective tool for manipulation of the ignorant, as it seems that nobody in the mainstream media has had the will to, or has been allowed to speak the truth about a number of subjects. The mainstream media is owned and operated by multinational corporations and will serve their own corporate interests over the common people’s in every case. What you hear from mainstream media should always be heard with the nature of the messenger in mind. Even news has degenerated to info-tainment, meant more to increase profits and disseminate propaganda than to educate anybody about the facts.

The internet has been a very helpful place for me to look for truth regarding current events. However the freedom of the internet is under attack. There are many in congress (and in the FCC who’ve been bought) who seek to end ‘net neutrality’. They have already voted to allow multi-tiers, which will mean expanding bandwidth of corporate friendly sites (or those willing to pay) while diminishing that of sites deemed less cooperative to their agenda. We’ve recently witnessed open warfare online stemming from the shutdown of Wikileaks and the likely false charges brought against Julian Assange. The internet is the last place where truth has the ability to flourish and the only place for those interested in hearing it to turn. This freedom and its propensity to question the propaganda and lies of the established order has made clamping down on the open nature of the internet and the free flow of ideas and information a priority for those who want the masses to remain ignorant. While this is an extremely serious problem, it may come to become completely moot should it come to pass that nobody has electricity because both the corporations controlling the power grid and our government have gone bankrupt.

The erosion of civil liberties that began under Bush has continued. Many hoped that Obama would bring progressive ideals to the White House and restore the rule of law to America. This has not happened. I could cite the failure to close Guantanamo and the failure to hold anyone accountable for the crimes committed by the Bush administration as reasons, but I don’t need to. The confinement and torture of Bradley Manning is proof enough. Ask most people on the street today who Bradley Manning is and they’ll reply, “Isn’t that Peyton and Eli’s dad?” Bradley Manning is proof that it isn’t just foreigners and Muslims that we’re torturing and holding without charges in violation of habeas corpus, and that the same treatment can be and is being applied to American citizens. He is being made an example of. With luck he will serve not as deterrent so much as inspiration to future truth-spreaders.

The Christian church, with their alliance with the Republican Party has become more powerful than ever. Their apocalyptic prophecies discourage people from attempting to prevent the end of days from coming. They teach one should have contempt for the poor, not to question authority, and that God wants you to succumb to the empire. Though they espouse their own morality, they remain completely oblivious to the irony that their own intolerance and rabid nationalism are contrary not only to their own teachings, but are in fact contrary to all decency. Ten million years from now, the earth will still be orbiting the sun once a year. Our planet will continue, but in the event that it does so without the human race, the blame will not be on God, but on humans. My bet is that those humans most to blame will have been Christians, or more accurately, will be those who used Christianity as a tool for manipulation of people for their own maniacal and destructive machinations.

The recent Citizens United decision by the US Supreme court has allowed for the first time, the unlimited influence of corporate dollars on US elections. For the past decade or so, there at least used to be an illusion that people were in control. That illusion, of choice, has been disposed of. Now it is blatantly obvious who is in control. Public perception is guided by the corporate media, and the votes are counted by corporate machines. Were anyone to actually mount a challenge to the established order, there is no way to verify the vote. Voting machine malfeasance would be relatively easy to detect by having a trained programmer look at the machines’ source code. That is why their source code has become the protected proprietary information of the companies by order of the courts. Though it is true that Bush received fewer votes than Gore in Florida in 2000, and fewer votes in Ohio than Kerry in 2004, the winner was decided not by votes, but by the powerful and connected. The evidence of their crimes, the ballots, have since been destroyed, actually in violation of a court order. Our covenant, which was so eloquently referred to in the preamble of the constitution as “We the people,” has sadly come to be replaced by, “We the companies”.

This is where we are now; approaching the edge of the cliff and it is near enough that it is now certain our momentum will carry us over. Our current system is irreparably broken. I haven’t the ability to predict beyond that. I don’t know what form this collapse will take, but somehow I get the feeling that in some sense the struggle will take the form of a metaphoric epic battle. My vision of this metaphor derives from the movie “300” about the Battle of Thermopylae, though I doubt swords or shields will be involved. I can see myself standing firm with a small number of my comrades, knowing full well that our opponents have massive advantages in numbers, resources, and destructive capability. My allies and I will be armed to the teeth not with weapons, but with something far more powerful, truth. And though it will likely come to pass that our force will get massacred, my hope is that our stand will be an example for others. Our sacrifice and martyrdom will resonate with the masses and I believe that those responsible for causing the disaster, those same people who commanded the army against us truth tellers, will be held accountable for their crimes. Their plans to accumulate all the power and wealth and resources of the world will ultimately fail.

So my advice to the reader today is much as it was fifteen years ago. Enjoy each day, because nobody knows how long we have until it is all over. Prepare yourself as best you can for economic chaos. Don’t believe the propaganda and double-speak. Try to keep an open mind. It is alright to admit your prior mistakes, as nobody is perfect or knows everything, and it shows that you’ve learned something. Be kind to those whose eyes have recently been opened, as there is much discomfort in the realization that everything you’ve ever believed is a lie. Reject violence as a means to accomplish anything as violence begets more violence. Follow what you know to be morally good and do not simply follow orders without question. Reject selfishness in favor of cooperation and brotherhood. Follow the truth, and join the struggle against ignorance. And, viva revolucion!